By SCOTT WHAYLAND
Big Shout Magazine, September 1990

Editor’s note: Last month, VHF drummer Scott Whayland began his two-part account of how he and his bandmates spent their summer vacation in the USSR and Romania. He concludes this month with the Romanian chapter of the story.

Think Again

I don’t know for what bizarre reason I thought Romania might be better than the USSR — probably the result of heat-oppressed brain. Even WMMR DJ Lyn Kratz reminding me that they don’t publicly carry guns in Russian didn’t sink in. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Russia. The country, people, and history were fascinating and wonderful. The problem was technology. The tour and video were in jeopardy due to poor sound equipment for our performances. The shows were the whole reason for the trip, and we were being prevented from giving our best due to poor P.A. “Things have got to get better,” I wishfully thought.

Babes in Baloneyland

After the traditional insane waiting period in Moscow Airport, we arrived in Bucharest, Romania. We had been in Romania briefly earlier in the trip, so the AK-toting soldiers no longer seemed unusual. We made it through customs fairly quickly with our luggage, and we were told the equipment would be brought to us. Our tour bus arrived and I thought prematurely that things were getting better. Well, they brought our equipment all right, and then just left it. There it sat, albatross-like, in front of the Bucharest airport with no way to transport it.

In Russia we had a truck to carry our band gear. The truck smelled like a long-dead horse, but it moved gear nicely. Our only alternative in Romania was to put the gear on the bus with us. Boy, I thought, 1,000 pounds of band equipment, 1,000 pounds of luggage and us on a hot, diesel-smoke-filled bus — things are getting better already.

We had met our guides Chip and Mitch at the airport. They immediately became known as Chip and Dip, Chip and Dale, etc. Chip laid down the first rule, which was don’t exchange money with anybody but them. As I was about to get on the bus, a soldier pulled me aside. “I’ll give you 1,500 ley for $50 dollars.” That’s a lot of ley, I thought. Then I remembered the rule. I was never much for rules, so I made the exchange.

As I sat on the bus counting my ley, Larry leaned over the seat. “How much did you get?” he asked.

“Fifteen hundred ley for 50 bucks,” I smirked.

“Did you know you can get 100 ley for a dollar?” he asked with a look you give to the stupid. Some quick math told me I had been ripped off. I then remembered a scene in the movie Salvador where Jim Belushi asks James Woods how much money they’ve got. Woods replies, “Fifty kilonies.”

“How much is that?” Belushi asks.

“Oh, about eight bucks,” says Woods.

These aren’t kilonies, I thought — they’re balonies.

Dracula Slept Here

We stayed in Bucharest our first night, and the following morning departed for Brasov. This was the first city we were to play in Romania. Brasov is located in the Carpathian Mountains, which is part of Transylvania. This area, of course, is the land of the Dracula legend. The vampire of fiction is actually based on a man named Vlad Dracul who ruled Romania in the 1400s.

Vlad acquired the name “Vlad the Impaler” from his habit of impaling his enemies on wooden stakes. He was actually a good politician in his day, saving Europe from the Turks. His method of politics was the ability to be more terrible and violent than his opponents. Politics has not changed much since 1450.

Our bus driver, who we called the Skipper, was similar to other European drivers in that he preferred the horn to the brakes. As we careened around mountain roads, I observed the beauty of Carpathia between fits of terror. The mountains are sheer and steep. They seem to rise straight out of the surrounding hills, and clouds wreath their tops. Between the mountains are valleys hundreds of feet deep covered with pine forest. As we continued through the mountains, we passed villages that hadn’t changed in generations. This was some of the most beautiful scenery I had seen on the trip — the stuff of which legends are made.

Brasov

Brasov, nestled in the mountains, is the largest city in Transylvania. Everyone on the tour, including those there just for fun, helped us load our gear into the hall. We checked into the hotel, where the video crew engaged in a brief fist fight, and then returned to the hall to prepare our show that night. Again the P.A. equipment became a problem. This time the problem wasn’t that it was a poor P.A.; the problem was that there was no P.A.

We eventually acquired a Pioneer stereo amp and speakers that would nicely fill a living room with music, but we were playing an 800-seat hall. Business as usual, I thought. As we sound-checked, a hiss filled the system like ocean surf at high tide. After two hours of messing around, our video captain Bruce decided to take things in hand — literally. He figured the hiss was from faulty wiring in the hall. Bruce decided to bypass the house wiring and connect a direct line to a utility pole. He hefted the power line into place with the air of a man who solves problems. He began expertly connecting the 240-volt line to our system and then suddenly became airborne. A misplaced connection shot him 15 feet across the stage. Fortunately, Bruce’s body weight equaled the voltage, so he survived. Unfortunately, the hiss was still there.

The band played the show that night, hiss and all, and we made a success of it. During our last song, in a moment of mental breakdown, Chris invited the whole audience on stage. All hell broke loose as instruments and musicians alike were trampled. Business as usual.

Following the show and load out, we returned to the hotel for a midnight dinner. I was very hungry and began eating and drinking everything in sight. Our singer’s brother Kevin leaned over to me and asked, “So you like cow tongue, huh, Scott?”

“What the hell are you saying?” I asked. Suddenly I was full.

Girl Mongering Abroad

After dinner, I strolled to the hotel club to see what was happening. It was a pretty posh club with a local band playing unintelligible cover tunes. I had a few drinks and decided it was time for bed. Now, the hotel was big, and somehow I got on the wrong elevator bound for an unknown destination. The elevator door closed, and I was trapped with one of the hotel staff. He was a shady-looking character who, with motions at his chest and crotch, asked me if I wanted a woman.

“Two hundred fifty ley,” he said.

“No thanks,” I replied, and jumped off at the first stop.

I stepped into the twilight zone. Somehow I had ended up in a part of the hotel I had never seen and was nowhere near my room. I found myself standing in a hallway that looked like something out of a gangster movie. The hall was dark and creepy, was dimly lit by brass chandeliers, and reminded me of a 1920s brothel. I quickly jumped back on an elevator and after some tricky navigating, found my room.

Meanwhile, back in the hotel club, our bass player and my roommate had taken over the stage and was playing blues with the band. They attracted the attention of two local young ladies who would suddenly become a part of our traveling circus. Rock ‘n’ roll.

Drink to the Sun

We left Brazov the next day and headed back to Bucharest. On the way we visited a 15th century castle called Bran, where our hero Vlad the Impaler had been imprisoned — a good thing for everybody except Vlad. Following lunch in Bucharest, where we learned our guides were former secret service police, we headed to Constanesti.

This city is a resort on the Black Sea and was home of our next gig. We were supposed to fly there, but everyone voted for the six-hour bus ride as opposed to dealing with luggage and gear on a plane. Our guide Mitch provided the entertainment. Six months ago this guy was busting heads and shooting at people, I thought. Now he was telling Vlad the Impaler jokes and leading us in the “one banana, two banana” song. Life is strange.

As we crossed the Danube River, everyone sang, rather terribly, the “Blue Danube Waltz.” After four hours and two-thirds of our journey, there came a loud bang from the bus. Just to make things more interesting, we got a flat tire. Everyone piled out of the bus and crossed an open field to play around on irrigation canal. Chris and technician Jim “Peakin” Anderson wanted to fish, but I just wanted to suck in some air not filled with diesel fuel. As I sat on the edge of the canal, dejectedly nursing a bottle of whiskey, I was joined by our soundman’s wife Margie Littmann.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Problems and more problems,” I said. She grabbed the bottle out of my hand, hoisted it in a toast to the setting sun, and took a slug. She handed it back and said, “My grandfather used to tell me, just drink to the sun.” I held the bottle to the sun and took a belt. Good advice, I thought.

Down by the Sea

Five minutes from our Black Sea destination, God gave us another flat tire. We all jumped off the bus and trudged, like an army of the damned, to the hotel. This was to be home for the next three days. The resort turned out to be as nice as any found at American shore points, and we finally had a chance to relax and unwind.

Aside from recreation, the band did some constructive schmoozing. We were interviewed by the local radio station, which was broadcast live to the whole resort. We were also interviewed by Romanian television for a later broadcast. Then the TV crew filmed a live video of us dancing and singing on the beach to a couple of our tunes played over loud speakers. This is madness, I thought, as we cavorted about the beach falling over sunbathers and naked children. The video actually came out okay.

That night we put on one of the best shows of the tour in an open-air auditorium. As the huge light towers dimmed and the crowd began to cheer for us, I felt that this was what playing music was all about. The crowd loved us, and it was a thrill to play for the biggest audience on the tour. The whole two-week mess was really worth it.

The next day we just hung out on the beach and took it easy. The tour was coming to a close and it was time to enjoy our accomplishment. The following day we headed to our final destination: Bucharest.

Business As Usual

That morning we boarded the bus and headed to the nearest airport to fly back to Romania’s capital city. Our guide Mitch forgot to confirm our flight, so we found out that only half of us could fly out that morning. The rest would have to wait four hours for the next flight. The band, crew, and a few of our lucky fellow travelers flew out on a creaking cardboard prop plane. The rest got to know the joys of sitting on a hot airport tarmac. Forty-five bumpy minutes later, we arrived in the Bucharest airport. Our stranded friends joined us about five hours later.

Bon Voyage

Our band, crew, and fellow travelers had been bounced, bussed, dragged, and barnstormed over half of the USSR and Eastern Europe. Therefore, as frazzled as we were, I was not very disappointed that our gig in Bucharest was cancelled. The cancellation was due to the show competing with World Cup Soccer. Soccer is everything to the Europeans, and we just didn’t sell enough tickets.

The whole tour group used the time to relax, see the city, and have a farewell party.

I declined to see downtown Bucharest because I had done enough road traveling for two years. I did get reports from my friends who went. Six months before our arrival, Bucharest had been the scene of the heaviest street fighting since World War II. This occurred during Romania’s recent revolution. The buildings were pockmarked with bullet holes, and some structures were just burned out shells. The television station was still surrounded by tanks and troops. I felt this was sad because the Romanian people had fought hard to unseat their dictator. Unfortunately, the Romanians look at their new government with the words, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” The revolution did not settle things permanently in Romania.

That night, after a bit of a farewell party in the hotel, I reflected on the tour as a whole. I felt it had been a hard fought success. I learned a respect and love for the people behind what was once the Iron Curtain. I had learned more in two weeks than I had in 16 years of school. But, as I sat on my bed clutching my U.S. passport to my chest, I thought, “Thank God I’m going home.”

The Cast of Characters

I wanted to save some space at the end of this article to thank everyone who contributed to the madness, fun, and success of our East European tour.

The Technicians: Jim “Peakin'” Anderson — guitars and gear; Jim Littmann — sound and gear. My Sanity: Margie Littmann. Interested Parties: Lyn Kratz — DJ, WMMR; Brian Miller — Philadelphia Inquirer. The Video Guys: Bruce Macomber, John Hawkes, Deborah Wellsby, Jeff Briggs and Brad Read. Our Brave Fellow Travelers: Howard Hawkes, Kevin Kish, Larry Parke, Joan Pitt, Deborah, Rogevich, Sue Romanowski, Curt Sink and Carrie Tankosh. Thanks also to Leslie Kelley.